


earth will break us

by dreamsheartstory



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Night Terrors, Pain, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsheartstory/pseuds/dreamsheartstory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A war between the Azgeda, the Arkers, and the grounders kills Lexa and leaves the surviving Skaikru broken.</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>Raven teaches Clarke how to breathe again and Clarke helps chase Raven's nightmares away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	earth will break us

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [@lost-little-lion-girl](http://lost-little-lion-girl.tumblr.com/) for breaking my heart with this prompt one evening. Nothing good every really starts with 'the night after Lexa dies'... but then this did. That doesn't mean it still doesn't hurt.

The embers of Lexa's funeral pyre are the only light in the square and Clarke is the only one still standing though Raven is sat at her feet so she isn’t alone. Octavia left when the last flame died down, the others hours before. Clarke couldn’t bring herself to leave the vigil.

It’s only been a day since the battle and the end of the war. She hasn’t slept. At first light she meets with the other leaders of the clans to discuss the future of the coalition and who will be _heda_ now that Lexa is gone; they still haven’t explained how it will happen. She feels hollow, like the hope she held onto has been scooped out and there’s nothing left to replace what good there had been in her life. So she feels nothing.

Clarke knows she should feel more than this. That doesn’t change that she can’t feel anything.

_“Yu gonplei ste odon,”_ she whispers to the smoke, the only sign left that the pile of ash before her had once been a funeral pyre.

…

 

Raven screams.

It’s early in the morning and most of the camp is still asleep and Raven’s screams are loud enough to be heard all the way to the edges of Polis. Not that it’s far to go these days between the Skaikru encampment and the edge of the grounder capitol. Not like it once was.

Raven isn’t certain if she’s dreaming or awake. All she knows is that the dead are whispering in her ear and she can’t run away. Her legs won’t respond and she can’t open her eyes. Dead hands ghost over her arms, dead fingers caress her face, their voices whispering that she is the reason they are gone.

She burned them, blew them up, without her they would be alive.

Her spine is ice and panic bubbles in her chest as she struggles to move but feels no response from her body. She has to get away before he comes back, because when they’re here he’s always right behind them reminding her that if she hadn’t come down to Earth that maybe he would still be alive.

His breath is on her ear. Raven forces her eyes open and she wishes she hadn’t. Finn’s face is twisted, hallowed, filled with shadows and night. He’s a ghoul, his beautiful smile twisted into a snarl.

She screams again.

Sometimes the screaming scares them away. The thing that isn’t Finn but is opens its mouth, and that sound that fills her head is unearthly. The screams of the dying and dead, a keening wail that makes her hair stand on end and her heart beat faster until she thinks it will burst.

Raven tries to close her eyes but she can’t, frozen and staring into the face that haunts her.

There’s a solid weight across her hips, heavier than the weight on her sternum that keeps her pinned to the bed. There are hands on her face holding her still.

“Raven,” the voice is soft and she knows it, but she can’t make herself tear her gaze away from the thing that is not Finn. “Wake up, Raven.”

She wants to scream that she is awake and she can feel tears hot on her face. It takes a second for her to realize that they are her own. The hands on her face are firm and gentle, caressing her forehead. She feels a cool cloth and the voice cuts through the ghosts whispering in her ear, and it murmurs comforting things. The weight on her chest starts to lift and she can feel her body respond to her thoughts again. Her fingers curl and extend, she can feel her feet flex and knees bend.

Tentatively she blinks, her heart pounding, afraid she’ll see the thing that took Finn’s face again.

It’s just Clarke.

Raven’s head is throbbing. Clarke is straddling her, holding her down, tears on her cheeks. Her face is flushed. She pushes at Raven’s hair, trying to keep it back from her face.

“Hey,” she whispers.

Raven nods. She doesn’t trust her voice, her throat feels raw and her breathing is ragged.

As if Clarke realizes the position she’s in she starts to move, “I’m sorry, you were thrashing about and I thought you were going to-”

Raven grips her arms before she can move, “Stay,” she whispers. She remembers what happened the first time the night terrors came, the scar on the back of her head will always be a reminder.

She doesn’t want to be alone, and she’s afraid to close her eyes again so soon.

Clarke glances at someone else in the tent and nods at them to leave before settling down onto the cot next to Raven, wrapping her arms around her. It’s a small comfort, being pressed up against her so she can hear Clarke’s steady heartbeat but it’s enough that she feels safe enough to rest her eyes for a second at a time. This isn’t the first time she’s woken up to Clarke trying to save her from herself.

The voices are gone, no more ghosts trailing fingers along her skin, no more faces of the dead haunting her vision. She presses her face against Clarke’s chest and holds her tight wondering if either of them will ever feel whole again.

…

 

For three days Clarke felt nothing.

She met with The Council, and she met with The Coalition, and she continued to make plans, and she took care of her people because now that the war with the Azgeda was over they needed a leader who could help them prosper through the peace and she had been chosen to do so for the Skaikru. Winter was coming again and they had not been able to ready themselves over the summer months as war ripped apart the grounders and the Skaikru alike. For three days she had no time to herself, barely sleeping for all the people she had to meet with, make promises to, to comfort.

On the fourth night, with nowhere to be until dinner the next day, Clarke found herself in the field between Polis and the small Skaikru settlement that had sprung up in its shadow with no recollection of how she had gotten there. No light reached the path, the fires from the camp too dim, and the fires from the city too far away. Only, she wasn’t on the path, she was in the middling of the field staring up at the vastness of the night sky illuminated by the full moon wondering if any of it really mattered.

The stars burn like fire in her eyes illuminating the truth of what has passed.

The war with the Azgeda is over and Lexa is dead.

Her knees hit the cold hard earth but she barely notices the pain even though she knows she’ll be bruised and bloody come morning. It’s nothing new. It’s nothing compared to the pain that rips through her chest. Lexa wasn’t their only loss, but in this moment hers is the one that hurts the most.

The weight of it crashes over her forcing the breath from her lungs and she can still taste the copper in the air; it’s bitter on her tongue. She’s had no time to mourn, no time to think. Her breath comes in shallow gasps and no matter how much air she takes in she feels like she’s drowning. With the mountain men, with Finn, with Charlotte, with Wells, she had moments, little pockets of time to fold in on herself and process their deaths. It was never enough, but it was more than this. She’s been holding Lexa’s death inside her as if holding onto it keeps Lexa alive.

_Lexa’s cry rips through the air and Clarke knows it’s her, not her battle cry, not a call of victory or attack, but an anguished surprise that shatters the hope and love that lives nestled deep inside Clarke’s chest. Clarke runs toward the sound before her eyes have even found Lexa and watches her fall to the ground. In those last seconds Lexa’s eyes frantically search for something familiar. Her eyes meet Clarke’s and blood trickles from the corner of her mouth as her lips part to form Clarke’s name; the sound never reaches Clarke’s ears. She knows the shape of that word against her skin how it soothes the ache in her head, how the return feels cupped on the back of her tongue, swallowed down in a moment of passion, the weight of it on her soul like a fur on a cold night. Clarke stumbles, crashing to the ground as the light fades from Lexa’s green eyes leaving them cold and clouded._

“Oso souda bants nau.”

_His words echo around her skull and she understands them but her body doesn’t move. Clarke is curled over Lexa’s form trying to understand what it means, why her eyes are lifeless, why she’s heavy and umoving. She feels her heart crack open and break apart, and then, nothing._

“Skai heda, nau.” _His hand is rough around her arm as he hauls Clarke to her feet. She remembers nothing of the retreat back to camp, only that the cry goes up that her side had won. Victory seems like a foreign concept._

…

 

Raven toys with the sleeve of her red jacket, not that it’s really her trademark red anymore but it’s the only real remnant of her life on the ark where she used to stare out at the stars not up at them. The night is cold and she wishes she had grabbed something more to wear, one of the fur lined coats the grounders had given them, but she can’t let go of her old life, it’s the only part of her that feels sane some days.

The field spreads out beneath her illuminated by the moonlight, blue and black spread out in gentle waves, she can just make out Clarke’s outline where she’s lying supine in the grass. Clarke has been missing since the meeting with the coalition ended three hours ago.

Raven sighs and steps off the even path onto the uneven ground leaning heavily on her crutch; she’s been on her feet all day and wants nothing more than to lay down, even if she won’t sleep.

Sleep never comes anymore.

She can just make out the rapid rise and fall of Clarke’s chest as she approaches, her breathing labored. Raven closes her eyes for a moment because this was only ever a matter of time. They’ve all been running ragged since the war started. The mountain fell, the Azgeda kidnapped Clarke, Lexa brought her home, the arkers split into factions and half aligned with the grounders, and yet the Azgeda pursued them all. With the Ice Queen dead there’s a tentative peace.

Peace is never easy for those who’ve had to fight.

These last six months have not been kind to anyone on the ground. She breathes in through her nose trying not to let the memories of the months of fever dreams take over her. Raven had lived through the hell in her own head as well as the one falling down around her and sometimes she still isn’t sure which memories are reality and which were hallucinations. The poison had nearly taken her life, stolen her sanity, the hallucinations breaking her completely. She has a scar on the back of her head where she split it open trying to beat out the voices in her head. Raven’s hands shake and she almost turns around.

Friendship hasn’t been something preserved by this war. It fell apart. They fell apart.

Clarke whimpers.

The night air is cold and Raven shivers wishing she had put on more than her thinning red jacket. Winter is on them again. Raven kneels down next to Clarke slowly before laying down on her side next to her friend.

Clarke doesn’t acknowledge her, instead her breathing continues in shallow half breaths. Raven reaches out brushing the back of a single finger against Clarke’s bare arm. They are vulnerable out here in the bright night and Raven would rather be somewhere warm. Clarke turns wild eyes on Raven, irises engulfed in white. She looks every bit the legends of the crazed war general from the sky that the Azgeda made her out to be.

Raven brushes the back of her hand softly down Clarke’s cheek before cupping her hand around the other. Her thumb tracing the spot under Clarke’s eye as she searches for a scrap of recognition. It’s there in flickering moments.

“You need to breathe, Clarke.”

The nod Clarke gives is almost imperceptible. Her breath slows in stops and starts, labored as they lay like that, gazes locked, Raven’s hand on Clarke’s cheek. She’s only seen Clarke from a distance for the last several weeks and not barely at all since the war ended.

Time has not been kind to either of them. Clarke has a thinned hollow look about her and a haunted look in her eyes that she knows too well. She’s seen it reflected in her own when she looks in the mirror.

The war may be over but Raven isn’t certain their victory was worth the price they paid. Most of the hundred and the other Arkers are dead. Countless grounders lost their lives, and all but the old and the young of the Azgeda have been killed in battle.

A chill runs up her spine.

“Clarke, it’s freezing out here.” Raven sits up and coaxes Clarke to follow suit. Clarke moves slowly as if her body isn’t quite connected to her mind or maybe she’s just too cold from being out here without a jacket. She wraps her thinning arms around her knees pulling them tight to her chest, her face hidden between, as if she can somehow make herself so small she’ll be overlooked.

The words come out strangled and raspy, “She’s dead.” Clarke’s voice cracks and fresh tears stream down her cheeks.

“I know.” Raven says quietly. Hesitantly Raven scoots closer until they are shoulder to shoulder. Losing someone you love is a pain she knows intimately.

“What are we supposed to do without her, she’s the only reason the grounders allowed us to live.”

“We are grounders now Clarke; we made that choice when the war started.”

“She’s gone and it hurts. _Breathing_ hurts.”

Raven presses closer to Clarke wishing for a way to make the pain go away and Clarke rests her head on Raven’s shoulder. She knows the only answer is time and allowing the pain to be felt. This past year she has done nothing but feel. Raven wraps her fingers around Clarke’s as she offers up the only comfort she has: a safe space and a friendly shoulder.

The immensity of Lexa’s death settles around them under the vast night sky. The sky stretches around them unending, and there in the field between the city and the settlement is an emptiness that Clarke and Raven don’t even begin to fill. In the grand scheme of things they are specs of dust, but when the focus shifts back to the immediate now, to Polis to the settlement, to each other, they are everything.

People are talking in whispers that Clarke might become the next Commander. The remaining Arkers and Skaikru, what’s left of the two factions of the people who fell from space, they argue over who will lead, because even after all this time too many of them see Clarke as too young. She is only nineteen, but she’s lead armies in battle and would be quick to point out age is irrelevant, Lexa was sixteen when she became Heda, only seventeen when she united the clans.

Clarke untangles herself from Raven and leans forward shoulders slumped, as she looks out into the darkness. “They can’t see me like this. Especially the remaining Arkers.” She scrubs at her face with the palm of her hand smearing paint and tears across it.

“Stay in my tent tonight, it’s closer to the edge of camp.”

“I should just move into Polis already.”

Raven sighs and scrambles to her feet. “Not tonight Clarke.”

“Have you ever had a bath, Raven?” The question comes out of nowhere and Raven almost laughs.

“Not all of us were privy to Lexa’s privilege,” she teases before she remembers. Lexa is dead. They’re all here because Lexa is dead.

Even in the moonlight Raven can see Clarke’s spine go rigid at her name. She leans on her crutch, kicking the toe of her boot into the dirt. Her leg aches, too long on her feet, too long on the half frozen ground. “I’m sorry.” Raven nudges Clarke with her knee and holds out her hand, she hears a small sniffling and realizes Clarke has begun crying again, however much she tries to hide it.

“I can’t carry you inside or I would, so you’re going to have to get yourself up off the ground.”

She watches, waiting, as Clarke squeezes her eyes shut and lets out one last shuddering breath before reaching up for Raven’s hand and pulling herself off the ground. Neither one of them is steady and Clarke crashes into Raven, nearly knocking them both over. Clarke’s arms wrap around her waist and she presses her face damp with tears against Raven’s neck.

Clarke waits for Raven to steady in her arms, waits for her to return the embrace and she feels Raven’s arms slowly encircle her. A lifetime has passed since the last time they hugged, since the last time they had a chance to talk to each other, the last time they were. It’s been too long and too much has happened.

Still, the embrace is a familiar one, and right now, that is enough.

…

 

Six days pass and Clarke hasn't gone back to her own tent. She's been sleeping curled up in a ball next to Raven not quite touching though sometimes they bump together in the night, mumbled whispers and apologies filling up the space between them. Raven is there when Clarke forgets how to breathe and Clarke brings Raven back to herself when she screams in the night.

Every morning Raven has woken to a mass of blonde curls on her pillow and it makes the pain easier even if it doesn't take it away. Clarke has always been an unexplainable inevitability, their friendship a constant in the turmoil that has surrounded them in this past year on the ground.

When she wakes up to an empty bed she knows it’s because Clarke has responsibilities as the leader of the Skaikru, but it doesn’t stop the frantic way her heartbeats or the way the panic hurts as it presses against her lungs. She pushes it down and makes herself start her morning, crawling out of bed and washing before dressing for the day, securing her brace so she can walk. Because she knows the voice in the back of her head whispering that Clarke is gone, just like the rest of the voices, is lying.

It doesn’t make it easier to know the panic is false.

Clarke pushes into the tent, hands full with bowls of fruit and bread and dried meats, and Raven can’t help but feel relief. She curses herself for the neediness and the weakness, opting to say nothing about her feelings but offers up a small _morning_ as Clarke places the bowls in front of her on the table.

“Thanks.” A quick smile pulls at the corner of Raven’s mouth but it’s nothing more than a twitch of muscle.

“Raven?”

She hums a response, a small blueish berry between her lips.

“Are you okay?”

Clarke kneels down next to her, taking Raven’s hand and Raven looks away, swallowing down the fruit. “It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”

“It’s just us, you can talk to me.”

“I woke up and you weren’t here.” She refuses to look at Clarke as she says it and so the hug that engulfs her is sudden and surprising.

“I’m here now.”

“I know.”

…

 

Clarke has lost track of how long she's been staring into the flames but nearly everyone has gone to bed so she knows it must be late. It doesn't matter though, sleep won't come, it hasn't since the war ended, not fully, just fits and starts and small stolen moments between meetings with leaders. And half of the meetings have been in Trigedasleng which Clarke is still shaky with at best. It was easier when she had Lexa to whisper translations in her ear. Octavia can't translate half as fast.

The thought of Lexa cracks at the hard shell she wears every day, because she will never be able to escape not when there's talk of her leading the coalition. There is talk that she is to be the new Commander and she’s worried what that will mean for the uneasy peace between the clans.

Her heart feels heavy like it will never be right again. There are too many deaths on her hands and she lives with their ghosts every day. She isn't alone around the campfire and so she doesn't look up, afraid she’ll see their faces just beyond the flames. Wells, Charlotte, Finn, the Mountain Men, the Azgeda, _Lexa_.

Raven has been watching Clarke as her head sinks lower into her hands and it twists her up to see her friend like this. They haven’t talked about anything that happened during the war, or the night in the field, how Clarke could only sleep if Raven held onto her tightly. Raven’s never had a chance to tell Clarke thank you when she came back from Polis at Octavia’s request to help hold Raven together after she had split her skull open trying to beat out the demons that plagued her.

She slips past the tent she’s half hidden behind and into the light of the campfire knowing she owes Clarke this much. Clarke nods to Raven as she sits down.

“How are you?” Raven asks.

Clarke’s spine stiffens and her fingers dig into her arms where they’re crossed. Her breathing becomes shallow and her gaze shifts back to the ground. Raven knew the answer when she asked but she had to ask because if she didn’t they would sit in silence and silence has been enveloping them too long.

Raven runs her fingers down Clarke’s arm and slowly untangles Clarke’s hands so she can interlace their fingers as she scoots closer. “You don’t have to bear this alone,” she whispers and Clarke only shrugs.

If Clarke continues as the leader of the Skaikru, if the coalition deems her worthy as rising as the new Commander, it will be her pain to shoulder. She has taken on so much so that the rest of them can survive. Raven doesn’t want her to feel alone in this.

“I can see them when I close my eyes.”

Raven wants to ask who but she’s afraid to know the answer because she has her own.

“My deaths. All the people I’m responsible for.”

Raven squeezes her hand.

The last vestiges of twilight slip away as Clarke’s head falls to Raven’s shoulder and Raven gently lays her head against the top of Clarke’s as she pulls her closer. Night envelopes them, the fire burning low and the later it gets the closer they press together, their heartbeats slowly falling into the same rhythm.

Raven runs the pad of her thumb over the palm of Clarke’s hand feeling the callouses that have grown there over the past year from fighting for their lives. They were all so soft when they fell from the sky. And clean; she rubs at a smear of dirt embedded in the swirls of Clarke’s skin. She can’t remember the last time she felt truly clean.

It’s a comfort to her to be pressed this close, feeling Clarke’s heartbeat and she doesn’t know what she would do without Clarke who put war plans on hold, who bowed out to come back to Raven in the middle of the night and hold her together until she could do it herself. If Lexa were the reason the Skaikru had a chance to live, then Clarke is the reason they did.

Raven nudges Clarke’s head with her own because her eyes are drooping and it’s far past time they should be in their tents. They’ll still both find themselves in Raven’s bed.

“We should get inside.”

Clarke nods against Raven’s shoulder, “We should.” She lifts her head slowly and her nose brushes Raven’s cheek and Raven turns her head. Their breath mingles between them in hot puffs, pushing against their lips warm and inviting and Raven can feel the hesitation in Clarke’s body because there’s a sudden tug in her gut and she wants this.

She holds still. Raven isn’t quite sure when things changed but she knows now that they’re like this that she wants little more than to close the distance between her lips and Clarke’s and kiss her, so much that her heart aches with it. When Clarke doesn’t pull back Raven tilts her head.

“Raven, I- I can’t.”

Clarke presses her forehead to Raven’s but it isn’t far enough away. Raven shifts back and moves to stand but Clarke won’t let go of her hand and pulls her back down next to her. She uses her free hand to turn Raven’s head to look at her with a gentle finger on her chin. Raven’s eyes are shiny with tears threatening to fall because it feels like a knife to her heart.

“Everyone I’ve cared for, everyone I’ve loved, _everyone I’ve kissed_. They’re dead.” Clarke pauses, her jaw trembling. Tears are streaming down her face,  “I can’t do it again. I can’t kiss you and watch you die. I can’t lose you too.”

Raven wraps her arms around Clarke and pulls her flush against her. Clarke is falling apart in her arms and her heart is breaking. She’s trembling, a delicate undoing, and Raven tightens her hold trying to hold Clarke together. Losing Clarke would shatter her completely, but never having her at all feels like it might be a worse fate.

She can feel Clarke’s heartbeat frantic against her chest and her tears hot and wet on her cheek though she’s not sure which of them is crying harder. Life should be more than just struggling to survive, barely keeping up appearances so that others can live. Their lives stopped being about themselves as soon as they stepped foot on the ground. Her fingers tangle in Clarke’s hair as she feels Clarke return the embrace, moving closer, sliding into Raven’s lap.

Desperation pulls them together, a thin thread winding around them. Clarke presses the words into Raven’s skin, _I can’t lose you_ , until she is certain Raven will wear them like a brand for the rest of her days. They’re etched along her collarbone, up the strong line of her neck, in the small hollow space behind her ear. Raven will never forget the feeling of those words tumbling from Clarke’s mouth and onto her skin.

This is how they break.

It comes over them like a flood, heavy breaths, chests heaving, hands pleading for bodies to be closer. Raven’s hands press into Clarke’s cheeks and they’re forehead to forehead, nose to nose. She’s straining not to kiss her feeling their breath mingle together because she can’t find the words she needs. Her heart is in her throat and it’s threatening to spill out of her mouth. She keeps that slight distance between them though, afraid to scare Clarke off by giving in to the ache.

“I can’t promise I won’t die,” Raven’s lips almost brush against Clarke’s as she whispers. There’s a fine tremor running through her arms and she slips her hands into Clarke’s hair. She takes a steadying breath trying to calm the chaos in her head. None of them are safe, even with the war over there’s still no guarantee that the other clans won’t turn on the remaining Skaikru. Clarke may be a legend but fear has not kept the grounders from attacking in the past.

Clarke sits back, her blue eyes wet and black in the dim light of the fire. Raven brushes fresh tears from her cheek and her hands slide down Clarke’s arms until they’re holding hands. Both of them have gone cold in the late night air and she rubs Clarke’s fingers between her palms, trying to warm her up.

This spark of a feeling started when Clarke came back for her, pushing their friendship into something more, but the war had been on and there had been no time for romance, no time for feelings. Raven doesn’t want to waste another day.

“I’m staying, Clarke, with you. I will die one day, we all will, but I’ll be by your side until then.” Raven wraps her arms around Clarke’s waist, seating Clarke more firmly on her lap. She picks at the hem of Clarke’s jacket, rolling the material between her fingers, stalling for time while she thinks, because she knows there is nothing that can fix the pain and the fear only make it bearable.

Earth has broken them.

Raven tips her head up, her nose brushing Clarke’s cheek and she presses a kiss there, and Clarke gently nuzzles her back. Raven presses a feather-light kiss to each of Clarke’s closed eyes, hoping that maybe, someday, Clarke will believe her, “I won’t cease to be just because our lips meet.”


End file.
